A copier of the type described in German patent document 2,733,521 filed by H. Kishi et al with a claim to a Japanese priority date of July 12, 1976 can make a plurality of sets of copies from a multipage master. The machine scans each page of the master repeatedly, producing a number of copies of each page equal to the desired number of copy sets wanted. The machine has a group of collating bins each of which receives a respective copy set from a conveyor mechanism which drops one copy of a given page into one bin, then drops the next copy of the same page into the following bin, and so on.
This type of machine provides at its output individual copies of a single master, usually delivering them at the end of the run in a sequence starting with the first page of the first set of copies, and ending with the last page of the last set of copies, so that one copy set immediately follows another. The individual copy sets are offset by a movable plate or table from each other.
Stapling together the copy sets cannot be done without first squaring them, that is aligning the pages of each copy set with the overlying or underlying set. In addition it is fairly common for the copy sets to get mixed up with each other, that is for one set to actually include some copies from another set.